“As the pandemic eased, businesses started to restore their operations whilst addressing the residual external pressures caused by the pandemic such as supply chain issues and inflationary pressures. Uncertainty in the business environment however soon flared up again as a result of the outbreak of the Ukraine war, which added other challenges such as rising interest rates, the increase in international oil prices, stock market volatility and general economic uncertainty. Our Deals, Consulting and Forensics business units making up our Advisory practice have in the last twelve months continued to assist our clients to address these and the many other challenges that our clients are constantly facing”.
Over the past year, we have continuously supported clients across a variety of different industries in their digital transformation journeys, driving projects across all stages from strategy to execution. In the public sector space, we have been engaged by DG REFORM to assist the shipping section of a local transport entity in its Strategic Digital Transformation Programme to become a digitally advanced maritime administration aimed at enhancing Malta's competitiveness within the global maritime industry.
Moreover, we also assisted the Government in analysing the composition and usage of its General Use Vehicle (GUVs) fleet by applying technologies such as the Internet of Things and Advanced Analytical Algorithms. Such analysis will pave the way for Government to make more optimal use of its fleet and embrace new technological trends to enhance the digital operation of such a fleet.
Similarly, we also assisted one of the transport entities in Malta in analysing the various results stemming from a nationwide survey carried out in 2021 across various dimensions/thematic areas. The results of such analysis will act as inputs into Government Transport Policy over the coming years.
After the period of negative GDP growth caused by the pandemic, Malta’s economy started to recover as from the second quarter of 2021. In 2021, Malta’s GDP grew by 10.3%, in real terms, and was forecasted to grow by 4.5% in 2022 and 3.7% in 2023 driven primarily by exports and domestic consumption. At the same time, unemployment levels remain very low at around 3%. Inflation, on the other hand, has increased from 0.7% in 2021 to 4.3% in 2022, but remains lower than other countries in the eurozone due to energy and fuel prices remaining fixed through state intervention.
In the past financial year, we were engaged to assist clients in some of the most significant local transactions, particularly in the local middle market segment as well as in the igaming industry, where more companies are seeking consolidation to increase economies of scale and profitability as well as to open up new market opportunities. At the same time, we have seen unprecedented international Mergers & Acquisition activity and, through our collaborations with other PwC network firms, we were involved in a number of cross-border transactions.
Local capital markets continued to be active and in the past twelve months we have acted as financial advisors in the majority of new equity and corporate debt listings on the local market.
We were and are being involved in an increasing number of engagements involving the valuation of commercial property and real estate projects. In these engagements, we collaborate closely with architectural firms in order to prepare real estate valuations that are based on robust and realistic assumptions as well as consistent with international practice. In addition, we are also involved in a number of valuations of family businesses, which we prepared to assist the shareholders in the division of their business and its transfer to the next generation. Furthermore, we are also engaged to value complex financial instruments, intellectual property and other hard-to-value assets, particularly in the financial services sector, the igaming industry and other sectors. In addition, besides providing valuation services directly to our clients, we provide extensive support to our Assurance practice, as well as to our PwC network in the preparation of fair value assessments, impairment testing and going concern assessments.
We continue to invest heavily in upskilling our staff in data analytics and other digital tools as this enables our staff to provide insights that would otherwise not be possible with traditional tools. When combined with our extensive market and industry expertise, our investments in technology assets and data analytics allows us to bring deeper, tailored and more value adding insights to our clients.
In this period, our clients have continued navigating through disruption, and needing to implement solutions to be resilient through today's rapidly changing business environment. In FY22, our focus has therefore remained on supporting our clients in both the private and public sector to address their challenges and opportunities across the wide array of services we offer including strategy, research, people and organisational management, programme management and sustainability. In addition, we have also continued to support the public sector in the areas of policy, economics and research. We have continued to strengthen our capabilities in these areas to ensure our Management Consulting team is strongly positioned in the provision of the full spectrum of public sector and business transformation services, and to help our clients build trust and deliver sustained outcomes, in line with our global strategy - The New Equation.
In the area of data, research and insight, our flagship project during this year was supporting one of the transport entities in Malta to carry out a nationwide survey to establish the traveling habits, frequency and preferred means of transportation in Malta. We have also carried out a number of sectoral studies for the retail, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and real estate sector. Through our collaboration with Onest Data, we have also supported our clients in both the public and private sector to gather, analyse and visualise market and consumer data better to provide insight to support decision-making, mitigate risk and enhance performance.
